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Re: Phrases

Re: Phrases

The rules for stative verb usage as laid out in the grammar books are yet another source of annoyance for me. Almost all stative verbs either have an action meaning, which often isn't so different from their stative definition, or they are used idiomatically in the progressive, imperative, or whatever else they're not supposed to be used in anyway. There must be a better way to teach students to say, "I come from Uganda" rather than "I'm coming from Uganda" without having them memorize a long list of stative verbs and an even longer list of the exceptions.

Re: Phrases

Stative verbs usually refer to a state or condition which is quite static or unchanging. They can be divided into verbs of perception or cognition (which refer to things in the mind), or verbs of relation (which describe the relationships between things).

Note that we CANNOT use these verbs in the continuous (progressive) forms; you CAN'T say "*Yong is owning three cars." Owning is a state, not an action, so it is always in the simple form.

I recently tried to help my students understand the concept by compiling a list of stative verbs from various textbooks, then putting asterisks next to the ones that can be used in the progressive under certain circumstances. Guess what? More than half of them turned out to have exceptions.

I had another idea for a rule of thumb to help them understand whether or not something could be used in the progressive, without having to memorize so much. We had played charades the week before, so I told them that if the verb was something you could possibly act out, then it could be used in the progressive. For example, the word "indicate" is listed as a stative verb, but it can be used in the active sense of "point out." If you are using it in that sense, it is possible to convey the meaning with gestures.

Unfortunately, I don't think it made a lot of sense to them, so I went back to the lists. Still, I think there has got to be a better way.